


Not That Bold

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Headspace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It works here, that fill-in-the-blank cliché: There are old hunters and there are bold hunters, but there are no old, bold hunters.</p><p>Dean was a bold hunter, and so here he is.</p><p> </p><p>Set during, and therefore spoilers for, 9x23.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not That Bold

**Author's Note:**

> To continue my trend of being terrible at coming up with titles, I've taken this one from One Republic's "Counting Stars."

It works here, that fill-in-the-blank cliché: There are old hunters and there are bold hunters, but there are no old, bold hunters.

Dean was a bold hunter, and so here he is.

He’s scared, but not as scared as he thought he would be. He supposes that’s a side effect of being scared for so long. You build up a resistance until even the great unknown seems like something you can manage as long as you don’t look at it too closely. You get used to it.

And he is used to it, he knows, desensitized even to death at this point. He’s been scared shitless for months, actually, months of sleeping less and less and then not at all, every waking moment spent knowing something was wrong with him. More wrong than usual, that is. He spent all that time simultaneously afraid of himself and afraid to admit his own awareness because then he would have needed to face _that_ reality. He would have needed to have _that_ conversation, that one with Sam where it would have become terrifyingly clear he didn't have all the answers and he didn't have things under control.

But now he's dying and he knows it and that’s his answer. Now he’s in control because he’s been through this before. He knows at the rate he’s going he’ll bleed out before Sam can even get him to the car, let alone to a hospital. He knows no help is coming, knows Cas with his clipped wings and his fading grace won't appear to save him. He knows miracles don’t happen; he outgrew that idea a long time ago. It’s comforting, actually, how much he knows about his current situation.

He’s on a clock, now, and he supposes that’s why he can finally admit it, what he’s been thinking for months. He can feel blood coming up with the words, but his voice conveys his certainty when he says it: "It's making me into something I don't want to be." As soon as it leaves his lips, it feels, rather incongruently, like a weight has been lifted from his chest. Sam is telling him everything he’s wanted to hear for so long and the darkness swirling beneath his skin is dissipating and for the first time in months he’s just Dean and he’s dying.

And it’s easier this way, it’s so much easier than the long, drawn-out process that would have been necessary if he was going to live. It’s so much easier than fighting his own darkness, those hidden, hated parts of himself that have been highlighted and amplified by the darkness of the Mark. It’s so much easier than trying to explain himself to Sam, than having to justify actions that aren’t entirely his own. It’s so much easier than apologizing, than taking responsibility, than mending bridges and moving on, than becoming the kind of person who lets himself want, who lets himself live for his own sake and not the sake of his father, of his brother, of the whole damn world. It’s so much easier than all of it that he knows he’s made the right choice.

But Sam is dragging him anyway, even though with each agonizing step Dean knows he's just stumbling along to his grave. Sam is talking to him, trying to keep him coherent, but Dean, for his part, is trying to figure out how to sum it all up, all of his satisfaction and regret, his love and rage. He’s thinking of all the time he spent being so sure he wasn’t allowed to feel good about everything they’ve accomplished, not with all the mistakes they’ve made, not with all the harm they’ve done to themselves and to each other. But he feels good now, feels like he’s looking at the final result of the cost-benefit analysis that was his life and thinking maybe, maybe he came out on the right side of it all. Maybe they’ll both come out all right.

What he settles on isn't quite enough, but it's all he can manage through the red haze that's seeping into his clothes, spreading across his vision.

"I'm proud of us," Dean says.

He dies.

\--

It’s surreal, what happens next, and that’s saying something, because he’s sort of in the business of surreal.

It’s not an out-of-body experience but a still-in-body one, where his heart has stopped but it feels like maybe his brain hasn’t quite gotten the picture. He’s just there, watching tears streak down Sam’s face as he picks Dean’s body up bridal style, carries him past wary onlookers and to the Impala. He’s watching Sam sit him in the passenger seat, buckle him in pointlessly. His blood is everywhere, soaking his clothes and Sam’s. There’s a trail of it leading all the way to the car and a smudge of it on the door and now it’s dripping onto the seat. He feels at once present and detached. He’s not sure about the former, but he’s definitely the latter, because he isn’t even mad about the stains it’s going to leave on the leather. Not worth being angry about; not any more.

He’s died before, but he’s fuzzy on the details. Not sure if this is the way things are supposed to go. He figures it must be. This must be the in-between place where his soul or whatever is waiting around to be sent wherever it’s going to be sent. Maybe there’s been some sort of mix up, he thinks, some administrative error because his assigned reaper is dead, some lack of managerial oversight that has resulted in his current situation. He imagines angels in business suits frantically shuffling papers, panic in their voices as they scream at one another, pointing fingers as they try to figure out who was supposed to be reassigned to Dean Winchester. The thought would make him smile, if he were still capable of that sort of thing.

Thinking of angels gets him thinking of Cas, and he does frown at that. Not in any visible way, but in something he feels in whatever this state of being he’s in actually is. He probably won’t see Cas again, and he’s not ashamed to admit he’s a little sad about that, but the rest of the angels, well, they can go eat a dick. So it doesn’t bother him too much that he won’t end up in heaven. Not that he has a choice at this point, but if he did, that isn’t where he would choose to go. Not with what he’s seen. Not with where he’s been.

So that only leaves two other options, and for a second he wonders if in those final days he’d become enough of a monster to earn himself eternity in purgatory. He could handle that, he thinks, a forever spent fighting side by side with Benny again. It would be a breath of fresh air after a living so long in the shadow of the fire that started him down this road. Simple. Comforting. Easy. That’s how he knows it won’t happen. He’s not that lucky.

No, he knows where he’s going. He supposes he should be a bit more concerned about his undying fate, but he finds the thought of going to hell doesn’t bother him as much as it used to. It means no demon will be fool enough to make a deal to let him out, not with Alistair’s finest pupil finally back on hell’s payroll. It means no one will ever be able to trade their life for his. It means Sam will be safe. It’s for the best.

Sam’s going to be in for a rough couple of weeks, though. Actually, Sam is talking to him now, to his lifeless form strapped absurdly into the passenger seat, and his grief is so plain that maybe it’ll be months rather than weeks. He’s hanging onto the steering wheel for dear life and taking in great, shuddering breaths, and whenever he manages to get enough air into his lungs to spare some for words, he’s choking out one _I’m sorry, Dean, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ after another. Dean feels bad about that, about the pain he’s still causing Sam, but it’ll be worth it in the end. This is just temporary, the residual sting after ripping off the bandaid. It will pass.

As if to prove him right, Sam is still and quiet by the time he reaches the bunker. He’s breathing normally as he carries Dean inside, and his eyes are dry when he lays Dean on the bed. Sam looks at him long and hard, like he’s making a decision, and Dean isn’t worried. He knows Sam will make the right one. And then Sam is leaving the room and Dean’s consciousness is not following him. He lays there and he waits for the reapers to get their shit together so he can be dead in hell rather than dead in his own room, which makes him uneasy for a reason he can’t define.

He’s just starting to think that he doesn’t remember death being so boring and then Crowley is sitting in his room and talking at him.

“Your brother, bless his soul, is summoning me as I speak, make a deal, bring you back,” he begins, and suddenly Dean’s confidence is wavering.

“There is one story about Cain that I might have forgotten to tell you,” Crowley is saying, and Dean is remembering being back there, back at the home of the man the king of hell had called “the father of murder” with fear in his eyes.

_But you have to know,_ Cain had said, _with the Mark comes a great burden. Some would call it a great cost._ He’d assumed it was what he had been happening to him, the downward spiral, the loss of control. But he’s made a terrible mistake, and the truth is much, much worse. With the realization comes a sensation like a storm stirring within him and oh. Oh, no.

Heat he shouldn’t be able to feel is radiating from the Mark, swirling beneath the surface of skin he should no longer be tied to, working its way into every last inch of what remains of him. Everything from the past few months is coming back, painting red over his consciousness, forcing him to bend to its will, and he’s fighting it, but it’s not enough, it’s never been enough, he’s never been enough.

There’s a hurricane in his chest and an earthquake in his bones, and _No,_ he’s thinking, _no no no nononono_ \--and then the Blade is in his hand and there’s no more struggle, no more him versus the Mark; just something vaguely recognizable as Dean Winchester because it bears his name and inhabits his skin, because it is all the light in him burned out until only the darkest parts remain. The Mark has distilled him down to his basest components, has taken all his rage and pain and bloodlust and turned it into fuel for this new existence, and as the dust settles he stops feeling dead and starts feeling _good._

“Open your eyes, Dean,” his king commands.

He lives.

 


End file.
